harrows drawn originally by spans of mules, but subsequently by steam power. The length of the exposure required varies from three to six months according to the nature of the blue ground.

The pulverised blue ground is then "washed." The machines are erected in " nests at various points, and are generally placed on heaps of tailings. The blue ground is carried by mechanical methods to the top of the machines,

and dumped into a shoot which is furnished with perforated pipes. These pipes supply water and at the same time regulate the downward passage of the mass into the puddling cylinder. The latter is a revolving cylinder, two and a half feet in diameter, with perforations of one and a quarter inch round, and one inch square. Both clear and muddy water is poured into the cylinder with the blue ground.

The " coarse ground passes out

at the end of the cylinder and is carried back to the floors

K

for further pulverisation. The "fine" ground passes through the perforations and is shot into the washing pan.

The washing pan is fourteen feet in diameter, and is furnished with ten revolving arms provided with "teeth" so set as to work the solid mass by a spiral course to the edge of the pan, while the lighter stuff is discharged from the centre into a second pan, called a "safety" pan. Each "safety" pan serves two washing" pans. The solid

slot "

mass, or deposit" is drawn off by means of a
from the edge of the pan every twelve hours. It is this
deposit" which contains the diamonds.

Meanwhile the water is not wasted. It is carried from the puddling cylinder to a mud screen, and, after being purified, is again hoisted by bucket elevators out of the tank into which it flows from this screen, to the top of the machine. The rate at which the machines work may be gathered from the fact that from forty to forty-five loads

pass through a single pan in one hour.

Nor is the

efficiency of the machinery inferior to its speed, for by this process the blue ground is reduced to one-hundredth part of its bulk. That is to say, that 100 loads of blue ground are "washed" down into one load of deposit.

This deposit is then "graded," or separated into stones (or gravel) of equal size, and further concentrated by Hartz jigs or "pulsators." The separation is performed by a cylinder, about 15 feet long by 1 in diameter, made

by metal plates with round perforations of four different sizes, namely, from th to ths of an inch in diameter. The coarse deposit passes out at the end, and is then sorted by hand. The fine deposit passes through the perforations, and flows down on to jigs furnished with screens covered with a layer of bullets, and having square perforations corresponding to the round perforations in the cylinder. The four sizes of stones are collected in V-shaped boxes under the screens. The lighter stuff,

however, remains on the surface of the downward flowing mass, passes over the top of the screens, and is carried off to the tailing heap. Out of twelve loads of deposit fed into the cylinder, one would pass out at the end, four would pass through the screens of the pulsators into the boxes, and seven would be carried away as waste.

The deposit thus separated into masses of equal sized stones is then laid out on tables and sorted. The sorting is done first (while the stuff is wet) by European workmen, and afterwards by native convicts supplied by the Cape Government.

The diamonds vary in size from a pin's head to that of the largest diamond as yet found at Kimberley. This measured 1 inches through the major, and 11⁄2 inches through the minor axis, and weighed in the rough 428 carats, and, when cut, 228 carats.* They show all colours, green, blue, pink, brown, yellow, and are both clear and opaque. After sorting they are sent, under an armed escort, to the diamond office. There they are classified by reference to their size, colour and purity, and finally made up into parcels, and sold to the agents of the European diamond-merchants.

The following figures will show the extent of the operations of the De Beers Consolidated Mines :

The extent of the open works of the four mines is III.73 acres. The De Beers mine shows an area at the hard rock level of 10'12 acres of which 5'97 are worked ; and the Kimberley mine, at the same level, of 4'55 acres, of which 2.69 are being worked. Both mines and works are lighted by ten circuits of electric lamps, with a total illuminating power equal to that of 63,696 candles. The amount of labour employed, according to the Report

On June 30th, 1893, a diamond was found at the Jagersfontein Mine, in the Orange Free State, which weighs 969 carats gross, is of fine quality, and blue-white colour, and measures through its longest axis 3 inches. This is probably the largest and the most valuable diamond in the world.

1

issued in June 1890, was 1261 Europeans, who are comfortably housed at the village of Kenilworth, and 5250 natives, who are imprisoned in the two "compounds." Among the underground workers the wages of the Europeans range from £7 to £4 per week; and those of the natives from 4s. to 5s. per day. The Europeans and native workmen on "the floors" receive respectively from £6 to £3, 125., and from 21s. to 17s. 6d. per week.

By means of this plant and this supply of labour, in the financial year 1892-93 (in round numbers) three million loads of blue ground were raised at a cost of a million and a half sterling, and the diamonds found realised three millions and a quarter, showing a profit of a million and a half; and out of this profit, after all necessary deductions and reserves, the Company paid two half-yearly dividends of 12 per cent. on their capital of four millions.

These, then, are the processes by which the diamonds of Kimberley are won. Let me add a description of the town itself. It is the vivid picture contained in Lord Randolph Churchill's "Men, Mines, and Animals." *

"Nothing in the external appearance of Kimberley suggests either its fame or its wealth. A straggling, haphazard collection of small, low dwellings, constructed almost entirely of corrugated iron or of wood, laid out with hardly any attempt at regularity, and without the slightest trace of municipal magnificence, is the home of the diamond industry. It seems that when the diamonds were first discovered some twenty years ago, many thousands of persons settled down suddenly on the spot like a cluster of swarming bees, and established themselves anyhow as best they could in the most rough and primitive fashion, never dreaming but that the yield of diamonds would be of limited extent and short duration, that their fortunes would be rapidly acquired, and that they would pass as rapidly away * P. 36.